02:33 - VIGJust sayin' I remember nikarg's Sodom review on the front page, that album was like 30 years old

02:27 - ScreamingSteelUSTechnically, Che's Manunkind review was too old to be featured on the front page. That was a special exception; usually, we prefer to keep our reviews within three-to-four months, with six months as an absolute cutoff.

02:14 - VIG@Radu Of course! I don't think it's too old to be featured on the front page. Look at Che's Manunkind review

00:09 - RaduPPublished a review for an album that's a bit too old to be featured on the front page, but you guys will read it, right? [link]

Germany has quickly taken the lead in the Depressive Black metal movement, with more one-man-projects popping out each day than zits on a teenager's face. Burzum's influence reigns surpreme, but there are a few bands out there that try to go beyond simply generating a third-rate copy of "Filosofem". With varied results.

EgoNoir is one of those projects and in itself the embodiment of the German scene. One of the one hand you have the highly teneous choirs, the calm and unearthly clean male vocals, a classical music-driven grande finale et cetera. On the other hand we have generic screechy vocals, razorsharp riffs that hardly impress since they've been done an inexplicably large number of times already, paired with monotone pounding on the skins. A shame really, because EgoNoir is definitely not a bad initiative. In fact, on numorous occasions the music is actually good. But alas, the band can't keep that up for the full thirty minutes that "A New Philosophical Thunder" is long and is ocassionally found in the pitfall of Depressive Black metal with its lame riffs and boring attitude.

Since I haven't heard any previous releases of this band, it's impossible for me to speculate on their future. While the execution is up to par and the ideas are there, you would expect a band that has been going for 13 years to have a more original sound. Unless you were never going for that in the first place. "A New Philosophical Thunder" is far from a new philosophical thunder, but it's a fresh breeze at least...

I quite liked this release actually. Especially the oldschool horror/sci-fi theme on "Winter is My Name", and the vocals, although tragically comic on first listen, grows on you, and fits the music so well. It's like taking the original idea of Mayhem's deathcrush and taking it one step further.

Although the underproduced pre-programmed drums doesn't really suit it. Only Lifelover has been able to pull that off so far.